News Highlights Health Official Can't Guarantee Openness in Talks 2007 federal probe of Toyota complaints resolved nothing Patriot Act - Eight Years Later Pentagon's Black Budget Tops $56 Billion
Italy's secret service knew of CIA rendition: judge
Rendition victim appeals to US Supreme Court
Obama's transparency record appears cloudy The Case of the Missing Jobs Revisited New Teams Connect Dots of Terror Plots Courts, Congress Shun Addressing Legality of Warrantless Eavesdropping DOJ, Defense Lawyers Want Court Papers Sealed in Blackwater Case Congress must revamp campaign finance online reporting, watchdog says Obama Speaks Transparency, Practices Subterfuge Of Interest
NEWS: U.S. Scientists Given Access to Cloud Computing NEWS: Seeing double with stimulus job numbers NEWS: NARA on Flickr Groups Offer Feedback on High Value Data Sets NEWS: What's Next for Swiss Bank Secrecy? REPORT: Better Use of Terrorist Watchlist Information RESOURCE: Data.gov: 100s of New Fed Datasets Released, Many Environmental NEWS: $50 Million Budget for Integrated E-Gov NEWS: Classified Outreach to Muslim Women NEWS: Pentagon mentor programs to see 'dramatic changes' NEWS: Can You Trust Census Data? NEWS: New Batch of White House Visitor Logs Released
[New York Times, February 3, 2010]
[Washington Post, February 4, 2010]
[truthout, February 6, 2010]
[Wired: Danger Room, February 2, 2010]
[Reuters, February 1, 2010]
[AFP via Google News, February 1, 2010]
[Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2010]
[States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery (STAR) Coalition Blog, February 1, 2010]
[New York Times, January 29, 2010]
[Wired: Threat Level, January 29, 2010]
[BLT: Blog of the Legal Times, 1.29.10]
[Federal Computer Week, 1.29.10]
[Wired: Threat Level, January 28, 2010]
[New York Times, 2.5.10]
[Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2.5.10]
[Free Government Information, 2.4.10]
[POGO Blog, February 4, 2010]
[New York Times: Dealbook, 2.3.10]
[Government Accountability Office, 1.27.10]
[SEJ: WatchDog TipSheet, 1.27.10]
[NextGov: TechInsider, 2.2.10]
[Secrecy News, 2.2.10]
[USA Today, 2.2.10]
[New York Times: Freakonomics Blog, 2.2.10]
[Sunlight Foundation Blog, 2.2.10]
Let's Reverse the Pattern of Secrecy
Concerned that our government keeps from the American public information that we need to make our families safe, secure our country and strengthen democracy, a broad-based set of organizations formed OpenTheGovernment.org. We hope you'll help.
Watch here for our 2009 Year End Report
Watch for our 2010- 2012 Strategic Plan
On Friday, March 19 from noon - 2 (EDT), our fifth annual Sunshine Week event is scheduled to be held at and webcast from the Center for American Progress. Confirmed panelists include Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, and Miriam Nisbet, the new Director of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). Learn more about the event here.
Interested in holding a local event? Get a group together to watch the webcast, and then host a discussion on government transparency at the federal, state, and local level. Download our registration form to make sure your questions are asked of our panelists and to list your event. Once you are registered, we will send you useful materials to arrange and publicize your event.
The Open Government Directive requirements include a mandate to agencies to post three new "high value data sets" by January 22. According to
Administration officials, these first three datasets are just a "down payment," or a minimum; agencies are expected to continue
to make new datasets available to the public via Data.gov.
On February 3, OpenTheGoverment.org and six of our partners sent a letter to Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, laying out some concerns with the datasets submitted by agencies to fulfill the January 22nd deadline, and offering constructive suggestions for improving their usefulness.
To help judge if agencies are meeting those expectations, and posting data that is of value to the public, OpenTheGovernment.org is collecting data on agency participation to monitor the number of raw datasets and tools agencies are adding, and the use of these resources by the public.
Already this data has shown that data has been removed without an explanation on the site. Compare the data for yourself here, and look for our analysis in the near future.
OpenTheGovernment.org is also working to increase FOIA accountability via the Open Government Dashboard.
The White House released the Open Government Directive on December 8. Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, welcomed the announcement, saying, "the Open Government Directive, when fully implemented, will take the federal government many steps toward real openness. Far from representing the end of the process, today's announcement is the beginning of an on-going effort to build transparency and accountability into the way government operates."
Read the full statement here.
On December 29th the White House released the Executive Order on Classified National Security Information. Find analysis and reaction to the revised EO from OpenTheGovernment.org and some of our coalition partners here.
As part of the effort to make the federal government a more open place, OpenTheGovernment.org works with our coalition partners and other advocates to highlight important issues and correct systemic problems. Keep up with our latest:
On Tuesday, September 9, OpenTheGovernment.org released the 2009 Secrecy Report Card. This years report chronicles slight decreases in secrecy across a wide spectrum of indicators in the last year of the Bush-Cheney Administration, after five years of continued expansion. For this year only, the report includes two special sections: one on fiscal transparency and one providing a quick look at the Obama Administration's openness promising policies and, in some instances, discouraging practice.
Read the press release here. Also, download the FOIA Risk Assessment Chart, an assessment of changes in FOIA practices by the Bush and Obama Administrations, and the expanded fiscal transparency section.
|
|
|
